The term ecommerce broadly refers to technology that automates sales transactions. When a consumer goes to an ecommerce website and orders goods, the consumer's credit card may be automatically charged to purchase the goods. The shipment of the goods is also coordinated by automated systems that track the goods from the supplier to the customer.
B2B ecommerce refers to the automation of transactions between businesses. For example, a supplier automatically tracks production schedules at a manufacturer and automatically ships required supplies to the manufacturer. The manufacturer automatically pays the supplier for goods received. Though consumer-facing (B2C) ecommerce is more widely known, the bulk of ecommerce transactions are between businesses.
Ecommerce with physical goods is straightforward. When goods are received, the vendor is paid. With digital goods, the situation is different. The vendor usually owns copyrights and other rights over the intellectual property (IP). The purchaser is only buying (or licensing) the right to use the goods in some well-defined manner. For example, a music company will own rights to music. A purchaser is buying rights to consume the music in some particular manner. For example, a retail customer who purchases a CD containing music is buying the rights to listen to the music in private, but not to broadcast it over wireless. The vendor who owns the IP may be concerned that the purchaser will misuse the digital goods. So the vendor usually wishes to monitor how the digital goods are being used. Accordingly, there is a need for ecommerce technology that allows licenses to be monitored for compliance.
When there is a close relationship between the supplier and the customer, the customer usually does not mind if the supplier asks for the right to inspect the customer's business activities to make sure that they are in compliance with the license agreement for the digital goods. When the business relationship is very loose, however, the customer may consider it an invasion of privacy. For example, a retail customer who purchases a music CD may not want the music company to audit him/her to check license compliance.
A large number of licenses may also be difficult to track. A customer business that buys 100 licenses for software from a software supplier may not want to keep track of compliance among its different departments. The use of an audit to monitor license compliance can create a tense relationship between the supplier and customer. Some customers may buy more licenses than is necessary to avoid an invasive audit. Accordingly, there is a need for technology that automatically monitors license usage so that payment may be collected for extra usage.
The current technology for enforcing digital usage licenses is usually too restrictive. For example, a customer who buys a digital e-book often cannot move the book to another computer. The book is “locked” to the consumer's original computer. Similarly anti-piracy technology such as “product-activation” makes it difficult to transfer software from one computer to another. These restrictions are usually resented by consumers.
The protection of IP is the foundation of business transactions involving digital goods. Minimizing piracy protects the content-owner (or IP owner). Allowing the content to be made portable from device to device protects the content-buyer. Accordingly, there is a need for antipiracy technology that allows content to be easily transferred from one device to another.